Why read this: This article gives B1 readers a clear, friendly way into a big idea: food is not only what we eat, it is also family, place and identity. Students meet Stanley Tucci, an actor who travels around Italy for a TV show, and they learn that Italian food is much more than pizza and pasta. The piece also asks a question many teenagers will recognise: why is modern life so worried about how food and bodies should look?
What to notice: Notice how the writer uses one small scene to open a bigger point. The nonna putting more food on the table is one short story, but it stands for a whole culture. Notice the contrast between 'south' and 'north', and between 'a perfect tomato' and a tomato that is not perfect. Pay attention to how Tucci speaks: he uses everyday phrases like 'rolled into one', 'overthink it', 'really messed up' and 'crimes against Italian food'.
Skills practised: Reading for the main idea across short paragraphs. Following a writer's argument when it moves from a personal story to a wider claim. Working out the meaning of fixed phrases such as 'rolled into one', 'al fresco', 'took the reins' and 'stayed with him' from the sentences around them. Comparing two ideas (regional vs. national, perfect vs. imperfect) and using evidence from the text to support a short answer.
Stanley Tucci on Italian Food, Family and Eating Well
In his new TV show, the actor travels across Italy and asks why our relationship with food has gone wrong.
Tap any green word in the article to see its meaning.
In the new season of Tucci in Italy, someone almost always tells Stanley Tucci to eat more. It might be a chef, a whole family putting more food on the table, or, most often, a nonna, an Italian grandmother. I know this feeling well. When I visit my own nonna's house, she sits me at the table at once with enough pasta and bread for ten people. Before I finish my first plate, she is already asking me to take seconds. Any Italian will recognise these moments. For us, food is love, welcome and identity .
The new season comes out on Disney+ on 12 May. Tucci travels across Italy, from Sicily in the south to Sardinia and the far north. He cooks with local chefs in Sicily, visits busy markets, and shares meals with family-run kitchens. One big idea returns again and again: Italian food is not just pizza and pasta.
“We think we know Italy,” Tucci tells me, “but it is much more mixed than people think.” Many Italians feel closer to their city or region than to the country as a whole. If you say someone is from Italy, they may answer that they are from Siena, or name their own home city. In Siena, Tucci visits the city's old neighbourhoods, called contradas, and each one believes its food is the best. In the north, the weather and the mountains shape what people eat. There you find dishes like polenta, which you almost never see in the south.
Tucci loves food, but he is also worried about it. He thinks people today have a broken relationship with eating. He talks about and the pressure to look a certain way. “We overthink it,” he says, and the wish to look perfect has “really messed up” how we eat. He feels modern life pushes everything towards being the same: we “want everything to look the same, taste the same and be generic”. Tucci wants the opposite. He says we should celebrate the tomato or the onion that does not look perfect. He is also not a person, and he is sad that many people now treat food only as fuel to fill the belly.
On a small island near Sardinia, Tucci meets a 92-year-old man called Tonino Bertoleoni. Tonino's family has owned the island since 1836, when his great-great-grandfather . Their long story, and the meals they shared, long after filming ended.
Near the end of our talk, Tucci lists some “crimes” against Italian food, and the writer agrees with all of them. No pineapple on pizza. No cream in a Carbonara. No cracking spaghetti before you cook it. And, please, no cappuccino after dinner.
In the new season of Tucci in Italy, someone almost always tells Stanley Tucci to eat more. It might be a chef, a whole family putting more food on the table, or, most often, a nonna, an Italian grandmother. I know this feeling well. When I visit my own nonna's house, she sits me at the table at once with enough pasta and bread for ten people. Before I finish my first plate, she is already asking me to take seconds. Any Italian will recognise these moments. For us, food is love, welcome and identity .
The new season comes out on Disney+ on 12 May. Tucci travels across Italy, from Sicily in the south to Sardinia and the far north. He cooks with local chefs in Sicily, visits busy markets, and shares meals with family-run kitchens. One big idea returns again and again: Italian food is not just pizza and pasta.
“We think we know Italy,” Tucci tells me, “but it is much more mixed than people think.” Many Italians feel closer to their city or region than to the country as a whole. If you say someone is from Italy, they may answer that they are from Siena, or name their own home city. In Siena, Tucci visits the city's old neighbourhoods, called contradas, and each one believes its food is the best. In the north, the weather and the mountains shape what people eat. There you find dishes like polenta, which you almost never see in the south.
Tucci loves food, but he is also worried about it. He thinks people today have a broken relationship with eating. He talks about and the pressure to look a certain way. “We overthink it,” he says, and the wish to look perfect has “really messed up” how we eat. He feels modern life pushes everything towards being the same: we “want everything to look the same, taste the same and be generic”. Tucci wants the opposite. He says we should celebrate the tomato or the onion that does not look perfect. He is also not a person, and he is sad that many people now treat food only as fuel to fill the belly.
On a small island near Sardinia, Tucci meets a 92-year-old man called Tonino Bertoleoni. Tonino's family has owned the island since 1836, when his great-great-grandfather . Their long story, and the meals they shared, long after filming ended.
Near the end of our talk, Tucci lists some “crimes” against Italian food, and the writer agrees with all of them. No pineapple on pizza. No cream in a Carbonara. No cracking spaghetti before you cook it. And, please, no cappuccino after dinner.
Questions
Check your understanding
- 01
What does Tucci say is the biggest wrong idea about Italian food?
- 02
Why does Tucci say people's relationship with food is 'messed up'?
- 03
What does the story of Tonino Bertoleoni mainly show about Italian food culture?
- 04
Explain why Tucci thinks Italians often say they are from their region, not from Italy. Use one example from the article.
Suggested length: ~70 words
- 05
Compare how Tucci sees a perfect tomato and how he sees a tomato that 'does not look perfect'. Why does this difference matter to him?
Suggested length: ~70 words
Questions
Check your understanding
- 01
What does Tucci say is the biggest wrong idea about Italian food?
- 02
Why does Tucci say people's relationship with food is 'messed up'?
- 03
What does the story of Tonino Bertoleoni mainly show about Italian food culture?
- 04
Explain why Tucci thinks Italians often say they are from their region, not from Italy. Use one example from the article.
Suggested length: ~70 words
- 05
Compare how Tucci sees a perfect tomato and how he sees a tomato that 'does not look perfect'. Why does this difference matter to him?
Suggested length: ~70 words